Finding a place of reflection, looking for meaning in the middle of life. Making sense of the past, deciding how to greet the future, all the while discovering more of who we are and who we are meant to be. A living, breathing memoir of sorts.

Wednesday, June 6, 2018

Hope is a Thing With Feathers

Have you ever yearned for something
for fifteen years? I mean earnestly begged God, and yet heaven seems silent. Maintaining
a desire for a long period of time against all odds becomes more difficult with
every moment that desire is denied. Langston Hughes puts it this way, “What
happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?”

Even though my dream withered in
the dryness there was always a hope that waited in the midst ready to encourage
my soul to go on. Another famous poet, Emily Dickinson said, “ ‘Hope’ is the
thing with feathers- That perches in the soul.” I can picture a little bird, hope, perching or
nesting in my soul. Taking up residence and refusing to move on even when
conditions are the worst. That hope, that things would one day be different,
kept me going.

Years further down the road, with
those differences complete, it would be easy to forget- to just go on. Some
would say that is the thing to do. I would differ with them. Even those who
trudge on must admit that an undealt with past keeps pulling you back as if
swimming in rip-tide. Sense must be made of our journey- at least to the point
where we reflect and see it for what it truly was.

My writing Leave Him? has allowed me to do that necessary looking back, making
sense of things without getting stuck in the past. This excerpt explains:

Chains

Dear Younger Me

Sometimes it felt funny to be free. The chains that were now gone
still refused to release their invisible hold, then all of the sudden they let
loose.

I remembered breaking my arm when I was in seventh grade. I had to
wear an itchy, at times stinky, cast to repair the fracture. The weight of that
cast followed me everywhere—playing tennis, attending school, even sleeping in
my bed. At first it was quite burdensome, then, at the end of the month and a
half, it became an accepted heaviness. Burdens and hardships are like that.
They weigh us down, and we get used to them, not even remembering a different
way. The day had come for my cast to be removed. A simple cut along the edge of
the plaster and my arm was free. Free and oh so light—too light. It felt
uncertain, fragile in its newfound freedom. It took some time to adjust—to feel
right again.

For me, that time to
adjust to freedom had been lengthy. A long string of what if I’s kept running
through my thoughts in my attempt to feel right. If you think of life as a
linear progression, a process of traveling down a fated path, it would be
entirely possible at mid-life to look back for a place where a wrong turn was
made. Instead, I began to see life may be more like a meandering walk, instead
of a train ride. A trail with no predestined end and many things to behold
along the way. Some beautiful, some painfully disturbing. The freedom of
walking down my meandering path of life brought an unsettling feeling of
freedom—one I must get used to.

I held a vaguely
familiar, yet different seven-month-old boy in front of me. His eyes, a deep
blue like his daddy’s, his little build, thick and muscular like his daddy, his
humor pleasant like his daddy, yet he was an unique creation. Somewhere in his
squirmy, joyful movements I saw a glimmer of something more. Holding him in my
arms I felt a connection, a finishing touch, maybe even a fruit of some of my
meandering path.

Thirty-three years before his grandfather and I started what would
be his legacy. I thought about how I wished his grandfather had seen him, the
real Mark, the father of James, then I realized that he had seen him. He sees
him more than I ever will. The train-ride mentality would say that Mark didn’t
make it to the destination, and that maybe I got off-track leaving him. Life
being a winding path with varying destinations available says that I still had
choices to make, experiences to gather.

As I held the chubby little hand, his fingers closed around mine,
I hoped and prayed that he would not have to wait until he was as old as me to
know that the heavenly father loved him, not based on the choices that he made
or the things that he does, but just because he is his, as he is mine. As I
continue to explore this life of mine, taking turns and side-trips along the
way, I must remember that when my freedom feels too light, like I’m not quite
grounded enough, that God is waiting, wanting to hold my not so tiny, little
hand in the same acceptance that I feel with this child.

About Me

I am currently in my third career as a high school English teacher in the small Georgia town that I grew up in. My first career was in journalism where I eventually started my own direct mail publication writing feature stories about businesses and a personal column, sharing insights into my life. After selling my paper, I embarked on my second career of spiritual counseling in an effort to find help for myself, and then to offer that help to others. I have learned much from life, but probably the most important thing is that people need to know that they are not alone in their struggles, and it is only by us daring to drop the mask of perfection and being real that we find true connection. This is my attempt to share my struggles, my failures, and my occasional triumphs to build a safe place to drop the masks we all wear and dare to be real.